Glance
by Nelras
Summary: It's always the little things, isn't it?


_Aesthetics_

Molly thinks Potter is handsome, but she'll never think him stunning. Molly has a thing for eyes, and Potter's are a hazy grime-streaked-broken window sort of hazel whereas her Arthur's are a warm summer blue.

_Alcohol_

When a young, not yet antagonistic, Potter asks Snape what he thinks of Lily Evans's eyes, Snape merely stutters something about them being green. He doesn't add, as Potter bounces up the flight of stairs to Gryffindor tower, that it's a green that rather resembles that of an unopened bottle of Firewhiskey.

_Beggar_

It is the first and last time Draco will ever beg, with his hand offered as he stands on the step just above the one Harry is standing on.

_Betrayal_

When Hagrid realizes that Aragog nearly let his spawn eat Harry and Ron, even the Gamekeeper's deeply ingrained love of magical creatures doesn't stop him from calling Aragog a monster.

_Cure_

As a toddler, Ron unknowingly provoked the twins into turning his teddy bear into a spider. He never learned that Fred and George had been terrified of their baby brother's severe asthma, or that the spider was their way of trying to cure him of it. But, Fred smirks to himself years later, he and his twin had quickly learned just how well their method had worked.

_Curse_

Hermione succeeds marvelously in the wizarding world, but when her daughter proves to have a natural aptitude for mastering necessarily cruel spells in the last half of her Hogwarts career, Sara Granger wishes her daughter had flunked out that very first September day.

_Date_

Ron is a bit nervous, going into Hogsmeade after the most recent attack, but Hermione's stride doesn't falter, so he trails after her, eyes fixed firmly on her hair.

_Dirge_

When she was seven, Tonks went with Andromeda to a Black family Christmas gathering. For some reason, the little changeling couldn't shake that feeling that the carols they sang were grossly inappropriate.

_Elegance_

Harry, lost in the skies, doesn't know it, but during the Gryffindor matches not a single spectator is there to watch Quidditch.

_Embrace_

Cold was only a backdrop for most during the melee that followed Dumbledore's tumble from the Astronomy tower, but to Greyback the chill was something intimate.

_Frown_

Fleur knows that Charlie will never give up his dragons, but she doesn't like the burns on her adoptive brother's body after working with, of all the possible charges, Norbert, and she knows from her fiancé's countenance that Bill doesn't either.

_Foreboding_

The bark of laughter Remus hears just before Sirius falls through the veil sounds all too familiar, and he knows before he turns around that Harry is going sob himself hoarse in the very immediate future.

_Grimace_

George's grin is as lopsided and toothy as always, but the sixth sense Bill has developed isn't owling his brain to tell him that a prank is on the way as the twins step into the station; this more than anything else tells Bill that Voldemort is back.

_Grin_

A rat can't possibly have facial expressions, but Arthur swears his sons' pet looks downright smug when Molly announces that the neighborhood dog, a docile, ugly black creature, was hit by a Muggle car.

_Horror_

Sirius can't help but be a bit aghast the first time he sees his godson's wide eyes—after all, they're the color of _Avada Kedavra_. And Harry's hair calls to mind the recently multiplying shells of curse-scorched houses.

_Instinctual_

Four year old Draco doesn't know why the sight of his father's blackest set of robes terrifies him, but confusion doesn't stop him from recoiling whenever Lucius wears them.

_Ill_

Seeing the dirt-smeared Boy Who Lived sobbing over a classmate's body can hardly be classified as the worst Madame Maxine has been exposed to, so of course, it must be her natural aversion to grime that is making her stomach churn.

_Joke_

Neville merely shrugs when he realizes that his clumsiness both injured him and saved him during the fiasco at the Ministry: he's long since gotten used to Fate's little ironies.

_Jolt_

Severus knew Dumbledore was dead the moment he spoke the spell but that doesn't deter the heavy weight that crawls into his gut the next winter when he glimpses the tomb.

_Kin_

Fleur can't help but feel a certain bond with Tonks after the shifter's outburst in the Hogwarts Infirmary.

_Knave_

When Fred waggles his eyebrows and tells Angelina he'll be her knight-in-shining-armor for the evening, she snorts and tries very hard not to say something indecent in front of McGonagall until she sees the corner of her professor's mouth twitch.

_Laugh_

The shriek is high and shrill, and it takes Pettigrew a moment to realize that he's hearing what passes for the Dark Lord's giggle. He hopes, irrationally, he never hears it again.

_Lake_

Cedric isn't sure why, but the moment he grabs the Triwizard trophy his ears become water-logged.

_Melancholy_

There are days when Lee Jordan doesn't doubt betrayal's crowning glory came from Gryffindor.

_Miss_

None of them want to think about it, but the students are keenly aware of the gaps riddling the Hufflepuff table.

_Near_

Some days Neville swears someone is watching him but he's not complaining.

_Naked_

No matter how far from sanity she strays, Bellatrix learns that she can't escape the world's gaze upon her back.

_Omen_

Sirius's glance is particularly stormy when he boards the Hogwarts Express at the start of their sixth term, and Remus can't help but wonder if it's portent.

_Order_

When Mrs. Weasley asks him what he wants to eat, Harry has a strong feeling that "nothing" would be the wrong answer.

_Price_

Hagrid knew that fighting for the Light would cost him, but he had never thought it'd cost him this…

_Protection_

Bill knows his sister needs to be able to use a quill, but after the diary incident, he can't help but go ahead and let her avoid picking one up the summer between her first and second terms.

_Quiet_

After Luna tells Harry about what happened to her mother, she has the uncomfortable experience of rendering someone completely silent without meaning to. It reminds her of why she prefers to read books downside up.

_Quandary_

During her seventh year, Penelope finds that both freedom and security are illusions, and then she can't decide which pretense to maintain.

_Reference_

As a rule Pansy doesn't pay much mind to small details, but when she finds out that both Draco and Blaise are ticklish, the information is filed away in some corner of her mind for an empty day's amusement.

_Reflection_

Remus thinks, on the day of their graduation, that James's eyes have never looked so much like shattered mirrors before, but he's not sure why.

_Similar_

After nearly bleeding Malfoy dry, Harry tries very hard not to think about the fact that the other boy is fragile.

_Spectrum_

Molly's hair always reminds her husband of fall leaves, and Arthur's own, according to her, is reminiscent of a golden sunset. She's always had a rather poetic turn of tongue at odd moments. But even Arthur is a bit unnerved when she mentions, a tad too aptly, that their youngest's locks are blood red.

_Tension_

McGonagall has never been outwardly unfair towards another House's students before, and is rather surprised at herself when she docks a Ravenclaw third year fifteen points for dropping his books on his own foot.

_Teatime_

It is, of all things, the memory of Hagrid's rock cakes that keeps Harry going during the trio's search for the Horcruxes.

_Ulcer_

As the venom seeps through the diary, Tom Riddle stares holes through Harry's ink-stained hands and smirks.

_Unclear_

Percy spent two weeks at the end of one summer looking for his Prefect badge and his school robes; when he demanded to know where they were, the twins were exasperatingly vague. For some reason, his robes smelled rather strongly of his mother's old hope chest when he found them draped across his bed two days before the start of the term.

_Vanity_

Dudley subconsciously avoids all mirrors excepting his cousin's shiny, puffy bruises.

_Veer_

The bludger arcs towards the Gryffindor Keeper with deadly precision; Marcus Flint doesn't have time to see its change in direction before impact.

_Wheezy_

Ron really isn't sure how Dobby came up with this new version of his surname, but he supposes it's a step up from Ronnikins.

_Worn_

Mrs. Pince knows which books the Granger girl checked out by the condition of a volume's spine and the amount of ink-spatter in between its pages.

_Xenophobe_

It's ironic, Crabbe thinks, that Draco is the one afraid of crowds.

_X-ray_

Arthur had tried taking Percy to a Muggle doctor once out of curiosity, and while he was usually enthusiastic about Muggle innovations, he was less than fond of the machine that took pictures of bones.

_Yawn_

It was the low rumble a sleepy (and slightly irate) dragon made that caused Charlie to fall in love.

_Yearning_

Petunia doesn't remember, but there was a time when she asked her sister what magic was like.

_Zeal_

Narcissa had forgotten color until she realized her son, despite his strong resemblance to Lucius, had quicksilver eyes.

_Zenith_

No one remembers it after she dies, but Lily had always had a tendency to turn on pieces of classical music only to shut them off as soon as they reached their crescendos.


End file.
